


It was red....

by kyrieanne



Category: Arrow - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Post 3x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3075644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Oliver & Felicity's date hadn't been interrupted? </p><p>A one-shot that explores what might-have been and possibly could be...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“It was red.”

 

When he says it Felicity’s chest tightens.

 

It’s not nerves. She’s been nervous since yesterday when Oliver asked her out. Nerves she knows well. This is different. This is a tingling in her arms and fingers that can’t sit still. It’s fear.

 

They have shared a hundred meals over the last two years. Big Belly burgers when they’re stuck on a case. Take out in the lair when there wasn’t time to go home. Bagels at Queen Consolidated when they worked until dawn. A single camp fire meal on Lian-Yu when she and Diggle came to get him. A hundred meals and a hundred conversations.

 

But this time is different. It’s different because of how he looks at her -- she’s never seen him look at her like this -- as if there is nothing between them. As if all his cards are on the table.

 

Tonight isn’t about believing a guy in a hood when he says she can be more than an IT girl. It’s about believing Oliver as he sits across the table and talks. Oliver never readily shares anything about those five years, and Felicity has learned to accept that fact. But tonight he sits down at the table and offers himself - the past he can’t shake and the worries he carries now - to her.

 

“Where were you?”

 

He tells her the story and Felicity rests her chin on her palm. She listens, still, and with eyes wide because it takes her breath away that he’s chosen to confide in her.  She knew things between them had grown over the summer. She knew there was a chance he’d meant what he said at the mansion. But still in that moment it catches up with her, and Felicity wonders when it happened. When did they slide from friends to partners to something more? She knows the course her own feelings have taken in the past two years, but when had it changed for Oliver? She’s caught off guard by how much of himself he offers to her, and how it steals her breath.

 

When he says she was the first someone he could see as a person she makes a joke about chewing on a pen. It’s a ploy to lighten her own nerves.

 

They are playing a dangerous game tonight.

 

***

 

Oliver has been on a lot of first dates.

 

Before the island he and Tommy had rules for first dates. Be late picking her up. Order tequila shots. Tease. Flirt. Compliment. They mastered a hundred different ways to keep the date inconsequential. The goal of a first date was to end up in her bed. Always her bed so you can leave when you want. Whatever you do, Tommy used to joke, no confessions. First dates aren’t the place for truth telling.

 

Then he sits down and looks at Felicity in her red dress and her hair down. He associates Felicity with a ponytail and glasses. All of them have a uniform they put on for the outside world. Hers is the ponytail and glasses.

 

Tonight she looks different. She’s still Felicity, but a softer version. The ponytail-and-glasses Felicity is ready to conquer the world with her verve and skill. The woman sitting across from him now is reserved for quiet moments--for whispers and confessions and the lightest of touches. Her hair curls along her collarbone and the candle light reflects in her eyes. In that moment Oliver realizes he is greedy. He wants all the versions of Felicity there are. The woman in the uniform. The tech whiz behind the computer. The partner reminding him there is another way. And this woman-the one flushed from happiness. To her, he wants to give everything.   

 

“There some are things you don’t know about me,” and then he tells her the truth.

 

And because she is Felicity she doesn’t flinch or press for details. “Those years sound like they were full of a whole lot of suck.”

 

Her empathy catches him off guard just like it always does, and he can feel the pinch of emotion in his throat. He raises a hand to his mouth and shakes his head.

 

“I’m sorry I’m just a little out of my element.”  Another admission.

 

Oliver swallows and makes a decision.

 

He decides this isn’t their first date. They’ve been on a hundred dates; in the midst of bombs and mirakuru soldiers and terrorist attacks they’ve had quiet moments too. Evenings in the lair. Banter across the table at Big Belly. Fights in his office. And her voice in his ear each night he puts on the hood - at the end - telling him to come home. In the midst of the crazy she’s stood by him not out of blind loyalty, but a deep and abiding belief in him and in what they are doing.

 

Tonight is not a first date; tonight would have never been without the hundred dates they had before this one.

 

Once he recognizes that the nerves soothe themselves out.  

 

“The time I was gone I could never trust someone. And when that goes on for so long you stop seeing people as people. You see threats or targets. And when I decided to come home I just didn’t know how to turn that part of me off. But then I walked into your office…”

 

Felicity was a beginning for Oliver, and it’s easy for him to tell her that.

 

It isn’t that he started over when he met her. Rather, he found the capacity to recover the human being buried under the assassin and survivor. She sparked a desire in him to be more than what he was.

 

He tells her this and then he puts all his cards on the table.

 

“Do you remember when I said because of the work that we do I couldn’t be with someone I could really care about?”

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 

“Well, maybe I was wrong.”

 

***

 

Their waiter appears before she can say anything. Felicity is grateful for the distraction. Oliver’s admissions catch her off guard.

 

They both pick up menus and ask what the other is going to order. She wants the pollo pulcinella, but is unsure it’s possible for her to eat sauce and noodles in a way that isn’t messy. Maybe she should stick with a salad. That was one of her rules for first dates - order something impossible to look stupid eating.  

 

But Felicity remembers a night from the summer when it was just her and Oliver in the lair late. They ordered a pizza and Felicity dug into it the moment the box appeared at her elbow. At one point Oliver leaned over and handed her a napkin. He touched his own chin and she realized she’d made a mess of herself.

 

“Thanks,” Felicity pushed her glasses up her nose. He took a moment before he leaned back, and Felicity shook her head. “Hacking always make me hungry.”

 

“I know.”

 

She remembers the way he smiled at her that night and orders the pollo pulcinella because this isn’t about first impressions; they’re way beyond that. When the waiter finally leaves Felicity lays both hands flat on the table.

 

Oliver leans back and sips his scotch. “What is it?”

 

Her eyes dart up to meet his, “What is what?”

 

“You’re working out a problem. I can tell.”

 

“How could you know that?”

 

“When you’re trying to solve a puzzle you inhale like that and hold your breath. Once you’ve figured out the answer then you let yourself exhale.”

 

Felicity licks her lips.

  
“Breathe, Felicity.”

 

“ImetyouonceatapartybeforetheGambitwentdown.”

 

Oliver startles and Felicity lurches forward to grab his hand. “We barely met. I went to this party with some friends. My friend Jen was obsessed with this guy; he was the DJ.  You were there. With Tommy. You guys came over to our table and hit on some of my friends. It was nothing. Just a few minutes and then you moved on. Not a big deal.”

 

Oliver coughs. “Did we talk?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What?!”

 

“You were drunk. You might have asked if we wanted to take a ride in the fastest car on earth. Apparently you thought very highly of your Bentley.”

 

“What did you say?”

 

“I pointed out that the fastest car on earth went faster than the speed of sound and is basically a rocket on wheels. Highly unlikely your car would measure up.”

 

Oliver turns his hand over beneath her’s so they are palm to palm. His eyes linger there. “Do I want to know what I said after that?” he asks.

 

Felicity smiles, “You said you like smart girls, and then someone called your name and you walked away.”

 

“I was a drunk idiot.”

 

“You were exactly what I expected you to be.”

 

His hand slides forward underneath hers so the tips of his fingers brush her wrist, “And now?”

 

Felicity swallows. “Now?”

 

“Now what do you think?”

 

She considers his admissions thus far and the heady feeling she has as his pointer finger traces the span of her wrist right where her pulse hammers.

 

“I think we have a whole night ahead of us.”

 

His eyes flick up to meet her’s and it’s one of the most intimate moments of Felicity’s life. Nothing could drag her attention away from him looking at her.

 

“I’m glad.”

 

***

 

He tells her about Tommy, and she tells him about her mother. Their stories reach back into comfortable memories and it makes Oliver forget that she never responded to what he said at the beginning of the night.

 

Well, maybe I was wrong.

 

He puts the doubts out of his mind and instead focuses on the way Felicity’s head tilts whenever she amuses herself.

 

“You know the only time I’ve ever driven on any of our missions I hit Isabel Rochev.”

 

“Is this your way of saying you want to do more driving?”

 

Felicity waves shakes her head, “No. I hate driving. One of the few perks of being your EA was having Dig drive me around. I failed my driver’s test twice. The third time I passed, but only on a technicality.”

 

“What technicality?”

 

“I hit a car.”

 

“How is that a technicality?”

 

“Technically I hit the bumper of the car, which is in fact considered an accessory to the car and not the car itself.”

 

Oliver ducks his head.

 

“You can laugh. My mom didn’t stop laughing for a week.”

 

Oliver grins, “I totaled my first car the second week I had it.” Felicity whistles, “I was showing off for a girl. Driving too fast.”

 

“Apparently some things never change.”

 

“I’m not a show off anymore.”

 

Felicity raises a single eyebrow, “Pretty sure just last week you insisted I take a ride on the back of your motorcycle.”

 

“You were going to be late for work.”

 

“Yes and you got me there with time to spare.”

 

Oliver plays with the unused salad fork next to his plate. He turns it over and over. “Well, I had a girl I wanted to impress.” He looks at her when he says it and she bites her lip and looks away. “Hey,” he leans across the table and captures her hand in his. He’s grateful for the excuse to touch her again. “Felicity?”

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“When I say things like that, does it make you uncomfortable?”

 

“No.” But she still won’t meet his eye.

 

“Then why do you look away?”

 

“Because I’m scared.” The tremble in her jaw just then causes Oliver’s chest to tighten.

She laces her fingers through his hand and leans into the table. “I’ve cared about you for a while now,” her voice catches and Oliver wants to stop her and reassure her, but she presses on, “and I didn’t think it’d ever happen, but here we are having dinner and when you say things like that to me it makes me want this so much.”

 

“I want this.” Oliver chooses his words carefully. The words are there - all of his feelings and things he wants to tell her, but she’s already looks overwhelmed.

 

“I want this too.”

 

Oliver smiles. “Then tell me about the first time you built a computer. I want to know.”

 

***

 

They get dessert and it’s easy. Their conversation finds a balance between the past and the present. Oliver confesses he’s always worried about steering Roy in the wrong direction.

 

“He’s lucky to have you,” she says.

 

She explains Donna Smoak. Oliver suspects she edits her father out of the earliest of stories, but he doesn’t push her on it. Tonight he’ll take anything she’s willing to give.

 

“It sounds like you and your mom are a lot a like,” he says.

 

She shakes her head and he repositions his hand around her’s. They’re still holding hands loosely across the table. Neither has pulled back.

 

“My mother is...my mother.”

 

“You’ve said that, but in all your stories she seems larger than life.”

 

“She is. She grocery shops in stilettos.”

 

“I never even saw my mom in a grocery store.”

 

Neither of the dwell on the past tense or the fact that it’s the first time Oliver has mentioned his mother in months.

 

“She’s wonderful, but we’re not alike,” Felicity leans on an elbow and props her chin on her fist. Oliver smiles because her fingers absently trace shapes on his palm.

 

“You’re both larger than life,” he says, “and I mean that as a compliment.”

 

Felicity looks at their joined hands and her fingers slow until they’re barely moving across his skin.

 

“Oliver,” she says.

 

“Time for the check?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

***

 

He doesn’t take her home.

 

Technically he’s living with Thea, but she knows he doesn’t consider that home. He still spends half his nights at the Foundry. But he doesn’t take her there either.

 

He holds the restaurant door open as she passes by him and Felicity smiles to herself because his hand finds the small of her back. It rests there lightly, but she can feel the weight of his fingers even through her jacket.

 

They walk toward the marina without ever deciding on it. His hand drops away from her back and for a few steps they don’t touch. Felicity shivers from the dipping fall air and loss of body heat. Oliver finds her palm and his fingers lace between her own. At the contact, her voice hitches in the middle of whatever it is she’s saying, and he looks sideways at her. Felicity bites her lip and Oliver pulls her into his side, their hands still linked, so that her head fits into the slope of his shoulder. She tucks herself into him and it feels right.

 

They walk along the marina in silence, and Felicity lets herself drop away any pretense. That feeling in her limbs and gut when they started the night has fallen away. “When?”

 

“When what?”

 

“When did your feelings change...I mean your feelings for me. I mean romantic feelings. I’m sure you had other feelings about me. Platonic ones.”

 

He stops and she follows his lead. They lean against the railing that overlooks the water. It’s dark, but the moon is high in the sky and the city drapes itself along the shore line. Felicity takes a moment to soak in the skyline of Starling. Oliver refers to it as his city, and she muses she should probably correct him sometime. It’s their city.

 

He arches an eyebrow. “Kind of like your platonic circumstances?”

 

She nudges him with an elbow and Oliver tucks her closer into his side. Their hands are still anchored together, but she’s folded into him so her back is pressed against the railing and her ribs brush his stomach. She can feel the inhale and exhale of his breathing, and she tries to ignore the way her own falls into his rhythm.

 

“You’re deflecting.”

 

It’s his turn to duck his head, and Felicity marvels at how they can both be sure and scared at the same time. This thing they’re doing - it’s terrifying for both of them.

 

“The day you started as my EA I worked late at the office and you stayed too. I was watching Blood rail against me on the news and you brought me coffee.”

 

Her eyebrows tip up, “Seriously? It was the coffee?”

 

“You know it wasn’t the coffee. It was the fact that you were there. I dragged you from a career you loved all for the sake of my mission, but you were still there. I heard all the things Blood was saying about me and even though I knew they weren’t true--they felt true. And there you were with a cup of coffee.”

  
She stares at him and he nudges her with his hip, “What?” His voice is soft and it does things to her when he talks to her like this.

 

“I just wish you could see you the way I see you,” she says. He ducks his head, but she isn’t going to be deterred. “Hey,” she raises a hand to his face and skims a finger along his jaw. It forces him to look at her, “I believe in you. That’s never going to change.”

 

“And I love you.”

 

When he says it Oliver’s voice is light. It’s a simple declaration and when her breath catches Oliver kisses her forehead.

 

“It’s time to wake up now,” he says.

 

She pulls away, “What?”

 

“I know you’re scared,” Oliver steps out of her gasp and the cold snakes up the front of her dress, “The sword Merlyn brought you was covered in my blood and your first thought was it was red…. Your first thought was back to that night and what it could have been like. What we could have been. It’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

 

It clicks for Felicity - what she thought they had tonight wasn’t real. None of this was real.

 

“I love you,” she says. She tries to make her voice like his had been when he said it. She tries to make it light and happy, but she can’t. The declaration comes out strangled. She’s crying and trying not to.

 

He’s backed away from her and his hands are in his coat pockets. He looks so calm and so at peace. Her Oliver never looked like that. Her Oliver was always at war either with someone or himself. A peaceful Oliver ran Felicity’s blood cold.

 

“I believe in you,” he says.

 

“It was so red,” she says, “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to go back to work or get out of bed. I just...I just want that night back.”

 

The Oliver standing in front of her doesn’t react. His face is passive and he turns away and begins to walk into the darkening night.

 

Felicity gets mad. She gets mad because that isn’t her Oliver - passive and remote. It’s like the night Slade attacked their city. That night Oliver had tried to give himself up because he couldn’t see another way. But if Felicity has learned anything in her short life it’s that there is always another way.  Heroes honor the dead by fighting. She’d told him that then and she shouts it at him again now. From somewhere a wind has picked up and it blows her hair in her face. Oliver is a fading outline in a dark peacoat, but she chases after him. She isn’t going to lose him again without telling him.

 

“Dammit Oliver I love you.” She catches up with him and he stops at her words. Felicity hovers a foot behind him. “I love you and we didn’t get our chance. We deserve our chance.”

 

When he turns around Felicity blinks because it’s her Oliver. His eyes are wide and he reaches for her. She’s there and she feels his weight as he leans into her.

 

“Say it again,” his face is tucked into the curve of her neck and Felicity kisses the length of his jaw.

  
“I love you,” she’s laughing and crying and kissing him and she wraps her arms around him. She holds on tight and promises herself she’s never going to let him go again. If he ever gets it in his head to make decisions without her again she’ll remind him of who is the genius. She’s not going to let fear hold her - or him - back. Life is too precious to live like that.

 

His hands come up to cup her face and he brushes his lips against her’s. It’s a gentle first kiss with the moon and the cityline outlined behind them. When their lips touch Oliver steps closer and Felicity angles her head. When he pulls away both of them linger and she wants to draw the moment out forever.

 

When Felicity opens her eyes Oliver looks at her, but it isn’t a look of contentment. It’s one of pain. She jerks back as blood runs out of his mouth and splatters on her.

 

“Felicity,” he coughs and more blood spits out, “I believe in you.”

 

And then he is gone and all that she is left with is the red running down her dress.

 

***

 

Somewhere in a cave in a place very cold Oliver Queen wakes up.

 

***

In her bed in her comfortable apartment Felicity Smoak sits up straight in bed.

 

She gasps for air and it takes a moment to realize that she isn’t on the pier and that Oliver didn’t just bleed out in front of her. That night never happened. They never got past the waiter taking their order.

 

Her heart hammers in her ears and Felicity rolls over to check her phone. It’s 3:00 a.m., and she pushes back the hair sticking to her forehead from sweat. She pads to the bathroom and switches on the harsh fluorescent light. Cold water on her face helps, but she still leans into the sink to hold herself up. As she forces herself to look in the mirror Felicity sees it:  the dark circles, the greasy hair, and red rimmed eyes.

 

It’s been a week since Merelyn showed up in the foundry with that sword covered in Oliver’s blood. She confirmed it herself that it was Oliver’s blood and with no other explanation to go on their team had been forced to admit the horrible truth:  Oliver Queen is dead.

 

Felicity bends over the sink, forearms balanced on the edge, and fists her hands above her head. She squeezes her thighs to make the blood rush to her brain and tries to rationalize the adrenaline pounding through her veins.

 

It’s grief and guilt. She’s shut down and it’s terrible - the fear lodged in her chest. It’s like someone is sitting on her and she can’t breathe. Oliver can’t be dead, but she saw his blood - so very red - and the hurt is raw.

 

He can’t be gone.

 

They deserve their chance.

 

He deserves to see himself the way she sees him.

 

The words of dream Oliver sneak up on her. I believe in you. She’d said it to him once when he needed to hear it and even in her sleep he is there doing the same for her.

 

But it isn’t Oliver’s words that cause Felicity to stand back up and look at herself in the mirror. It’s her own - you honor the dead by fighting.

 

Felicity may be a genius, but in the past week she’s felt unmoored. She doesn’t know what to do or how to feel or even if she’s capable of ever accepting that Oliver is dead. But she does know that Malcolm Merelyn isn’t to be trusted, that Oliver is a survivor, and that she is not done fighting. Her hands fumble as she digs through her vanity drawer, but Felicity finds a hair tie and she watches carefully in the mirror even though she’s done this a thousand times. She pulls her hair back in it’s go-to ponytail, and she slips her glasses on. The red-rimmed grief is still there, but she feels better already. She’s got her uniform on.

 

Felicity doesn’t stop to think if she’s honoring Oliver by fighting or choosing to believe there’s a chance he could still be alive. She won’t allow herself to stop long enough to decide.

 

She wasn’t going to give up just because Merlyn says so. It’s time to find Oliver - alive or dead. It’s time to get back to work. That’s what a hero does after all.

 

***

Somewhere Oliver wakes up and he swears he can hear Felicity yelling at him that she loves him. He doesn't know what is real and what isn't. He's not even sure that he's alive, but on the off chance that he might be Oliver decides to fight. The chance to really hear her say it gives him something to believe in.  

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A related drabble I wrote recently on tumblr.

It’s not something that Felicity allows herself to indulge in often.

As time goes on she grants herself permission less and less. It feels wrong to do; not like morally wrong just unwise. Her verbal gauwffs are proof that what occurs in Felicity’s brain has little to no filter from being blurted out at the most inopportune times. 

_I imagined you saying that under different circumstances…very platonic circumstances._

The longer Felicity knows Oliver the more rare her day dreams. As she becomes embroiled with Team Arrow she collapses into bed every night dreaming not of salmon ladders, but of lazy saturday mornings catching up with the shows on her DVR.

And as she gets to know Oliver - really know him - her fantasies change. Oh, she’ll always appreciate the view - and there is the recurring one where she does body shots off his abs because good lord  _have you seen him?_  - but something shifts in her brain. He becomes less an object and shifts into more of a character with his own quirks and agenda. 

She doesn’t even recognize it until after they come back from Lian Yu _(the second time)._ She stands on that beach and gives him an out, but he doesn’t take it. He doesn’t move either. He stands there looking down at her and Felicity doesn’t know what to think or feel. She says something about home and they fall into step toward John and the plane. When Oliver holds out a hand to help her climb aboard Felicity feels the pressure of his hand around her own and her brain kicks in.

_Hand in hand they climb aboard a different plane headed not toward home, but away from it. She’s in white and him in a tux that fits like a second skin. There is cool metal on their ring fingers and behind them their family and friends. But then they are in the cabin and he tucks a kiss into the curve of her neck and that is just for her. From here on out it is him and her. The two of them first and foremost._

Felicity talks herself out of such fantasies. They are more dangerous than her most vivid day dreams when she first met the illustrious Oliver Queen. Those had been wildly out-of-character, white knight type of things. But once he said  _I love you_ and didn’t take it back Felicity imagines scenes with the real Oliver. He’s stubborn and bull headed and sometimes an ass, but he can always make her smile.

She day dreams lunch dates at Big Belly and evenings where they stay late in the Foundry, but never talk. At the end of those he kisses her head when he’s ready to go home and they take his bike back to her place. There’s always cold take out for dinner at midnight and falling into bed together a mess of legs and arms to tired for more than a lingering kiss good night. Her daydream!Oliver even snores lightly just like the real Oliver does and Felicity is a bit disturbed by how detail oriented her brain can be sometimes.

The summer after Oliver’s confession Felicity tries (unsuccessfully) to banish the fantasies because they take on an alarming potency. They make her want a life that isn’t ever going to happen. If Felicity learned one thing from her mother it was to look at a man’s actions and not his words. Oliver may have not taken back his words to her, but he just stood there on that beach and did nothing. He didn’t step away from her or toward her. Conclusion: Oliver Queen is not in love with her, and pretending he might ever be was only going to lead to one broken heart. 

Then he asks her out and Felicity lets her fantasies go wild. For 48 hours she indulges every whim. Her boss yells at her because she stays in the storeroom for 25 minutes in a detailed day dream about what she would do if Oliver ask to walk her to her door. But Felicity doesn’t care that day about her crap job. Tonight Oliver Queen is taking her out, and Felicity knows exactly what to wear. She’s imagined it a time or two. 

_Then stop dangling maybes._

After she walks away from him (and their kiss) Felicity muses no one realizes how many maybes she’s held onto for so many years. There is a whole catalogue inside her brain, and after Oliver draws away Felicity forbids herself from going there even in the private recesses of her own mind. It hurt too much. 

Then the damn idiot tells her he loves her (unequivocally) and disappears.

She refuses to accept what Merlyn says. Oliver Queen is not dead. He can’t be.

In none of her dreams does Oliver ever die. She’s covered every potential ending in her mind but that one. They never get together. He chooses someone else. She chooses someone else. Hell, she’s even imagined what it would be like if they never choose anyone, never get together, but walk that line of friendship for decades. It’s a sweet, wildly unrealistic one where she, Oliver, and John all end up in the same nursing home. They run missions in their wheelchairs and Dig’s kids visit them on Sundays. The best part (because it’s Felicity’s damn imagination) is that she still rocks the lipstick and Oliver can pop wheelies in his wheelchair like no one’s business. It’s ridiculous, but Felicity doesn’t care. It’s in her head and no where else.

But the idea that Oliver Queen could die? That he could be beaten, let alone stabbed and left to bleed out in the snow alone and cold is too much for even Felicity to imagine. 

In the wake of his absence Felicity reverts to the best of her dreams:  quiet Saturday mornings spent on either end of the couch, holidays with loved ones restored from the dead, a bored day spent in the foundry teaching one another their favorite things:  hacking and archery, watching Oliver finally crossing off the last names on his father’s list, and probably the simplest, most acute day dream of all:  what their dinner might have been like if they’d ever gotten to finish it. 

That one hurts the most and Felicity dreams about it. She plays out what they would have talked about and the way they would have closed down the restaurant. Despite her speech at the beginning of the night about having talked about everything you’d talk about on a date Felicity knows they would have found more to discuss. That is one of her favorite aspects to their relationship-they never cease to surprise one another even in the smallest of ways. In her dreams they talk forever. 

To the world Oliver Queen has died twice - once on an island and once on a mountain - but in Felicity’s mind he is still alive. The possibility of  _them_ continues to be just like as it has always been. It’s a quiet dream she keeps to herself, but it is a dream none-the-less.

As she sets herself to finding Oliver Queen - his body or him - Felicity decides dreams are important. Dreams kindle hope; they spark everything good in your life. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode Coda to 3x14 "The Return."

They light a fire.

 

It’s the coldest part of the year on Lian Yu so Oliver pulls out the extra blanket he packed and tosses it at Thea’s feet.

 

“What about you?”

 

He smiles, “I survived a lot of nights on this place without an all weather sleeping bag.”

 

Thea tilts her head and looks at him. She’s been doing that a lot ever since he told her the truth. Her gaze lingers on him, and she looks at him as if with his secret identity the puzzle of her brother has finally finished. She’s recovered the last, missing piece and now the whole picture makes sense. She has finally, truly gotten him back from the island.

 

When his sister tilts her head Oliver feels a tightening in his chest; it’s happiness.

 

They slip into their sleeping bags and Oliver adds a log to the fire. Their heads face one another and Oliver notices that she’s as close to the flames as she can get without burning herself. When he lies down Oliver smiles because the only part of Thea that is visible are her eyes and top of her head. She’s wrapped the extra blanket around her like a shawl and pulled the sleeping bag up as high as it will go.

 

“Ollie?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Tell me something happy. Something from those five years.”

 

He recalls a time when he yelled at Felicity. She’d asked if he had any happy stories and he shouted at her. It was true - what he said then - in those five years nothing good happened. Anything bright was completely overshadowed by the bad.

 

So he makes something up. He lies.

 

***

 

But then his dreams betray him. Oliver dreams of Sara, and Thea won’t let it go.

 

“Tell me what happened with Sara.”

 

He does and it twists his gut to see her face fall like that. She backs away from him as if doing so she’s protecting him. Oliver has delivered bad news before. He’s seen people break, but that doesn’t make this any easier. He holds still because he knows what it’s like to feel the ground spin out beneath you. To blink and realize the world is a fundamentally different place than just a mere second ago. You are different.

 

There is no going back.

 

***

 

Most of the plane ride back is silent. Both of them are caught up in their own minds. Thea slumps against the passenger window, elbow propped against the glass, and her head tilted. It isn’t the same inquisitive tild-of-the-head as before. This is a listless lost look. She’s swimming in her own stray thoughts. Oliver respects that enough to say nothing.

 

Except for one thing. He needs to tell her one thing.

 

“I lied.”

 

“What?”

 

Oliver swallows. “Our first night on the island you asked me for something good, something happy during those years I was away.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I lied. The stories I told you about friendship and learning how to rely on myself. They aren’t true.”

 

Thea straightens in her seat. “None of those things happened?”

 

He shrugs and adjusts his hands on the plane’s yoke. “They happened, but I was never happy. Not truly. There was too much…” He thinks of how Felicity had put it--that those years were filled with a whole lot of suck--and he can’t help but muse on her turns-of-phrase.

 

“You smiled.”

 

“What?”

 

“You were talking about how terrible those years were -,”

 

“I don’t want to lie to you any more. No more secrets.”

 

“I get that and I appreciate it, but I want to talk about what just made you smile.”

 

Oliver ducks his chin. In some ways it’s easier to talk about those five years because they feel so decided. He knows how to define them. But he means it - no more secrets.

 

“I was thinking about something Felicity said.”

 

From the corner of his eye he sees Thea’s head tilt.

 

“You’re in love with her.”

 

He raises an eyebrow toward his sister, but she’s grins at him. Her whole posture is different than a moment ago, and she tucks her feet under her knees.

 

“I didn’t say that,” Oliver says.

 

“Your whole face gave it away,” she smacks his arm. “When?”

 

“When what?”

 

“When did you fall for her?”

 

He shrugs. “She’s always been special.”

 

“I remember when she showed up at the hospital after we got Walter back. You called her your friend.”

 

“She was. She is.”

 

Thea smiles. “I remember thinking it was weird because my big brother isn’t _friends_ with women.”

 

“She was the second person I told,” Oliver says. “Diggle was first, but Felicity was practically part of the team. I fed her the lamest excuses.”

 

He tells Thea about the bullet laptop and _my coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood_ and all the other times Felicity helped him out before she knew the truth.

 

“Then Mom shot me -,”

 

“Wait, Mom _shot_ you?”

 

“She shot the vigilante who cornered her in her office to find out if she knew anything about the Undertaking.”

 

Thea held up a finger. “We’re going to circle back to that, but for now...Felicity.”

 

Oliver bites the corners of his mouth. “I hid in the backseat of her car. I knew I wouldn’t make it back to Verdant and I couldn’t call Dig. I knew her schedule and took a chance.”

 

“That she wouldn’t turn you in?”

 

“That she’d trust me.”

 

“And she did?”   
  


“She did. She drove my passed-out ass to Verdant and found Diggle. When I woke up she had already redesigned my entire computer setup.”   
  


“You make it sound so normal. Like all of this...the work you do...the people who help you... all of it just seems to _work_.”

 

“It doesn’t. You saw.”

 

Thea nods. They both remember her walking into the lair as Laurel fought the effects of a Vertigo overdose. Oliver snapped and his team had plenty to say in return. He knows he deserved a lot of the blame. He can be domineering. He barks orders and forgets that they aren’t soldiers. They are his friends.

 

What Oliver wishes he could put into words is the weight he feels every moment of every day. It’s not just his team. It’s the whole city. When Sara died Felicity accused him of not feeling and her words hurt. She took them back, but still they rattled around in Oliver’s head. Sara wasn’t just a girl he once loved. She was the closest thing to someone like him in the world. There are other people with the similar skill sets, but Sara had similar tethers to the world as Oliver:  family, friends, lovers, and home. Each of those demanded something from Oliver and their residual effect weighed him down.

 

It’s exhausting and terrifying.

 

Who dies if he miscalculates? What disaster is around the corner? Which threat will come next?

 

Felicity had said Oliver had to live with their choices. In that moment their eyes locked and he saw how her own voice startled her. She stood her ground and trembled at the same time. Oliver wishes he could find a way to make her understand. It isn’t her choices or Laurel’s or Roy’s or anyone’s really that he questions.

 

It’s his own.

 

“Tell me about Felicity.” Thea interrupts his downward internal spiral and drags him back to that moment with her in the plane cabin.

 

“She’s a genius.”

 

“That’s good because you’re not.”

 

He lets that one go because it feels good - this sibling banter. It feels almost normal.

 

“At first she only signed on provisionally to help find Walter. But then something changed.”

 

“What was it?”

 

“Both of us probably. She was one of the first people to really challenge me. I was so hellbent on righting Dad’s sins that I couldn’t think beyond revenge. Felicity pushed me to do some real good in the city. To stand up for people even if they had nothing to do with our family.”

 

“I like her already.”

 

Oliver ducks his head, “I’m not her favorite person right now. Things between us are...strained.”

 

“What’d you do?”

 

“I died.”

 

Oliver tells Thea the last of his secrets:  where he really was last month when he disappeared. She puts the pieces together herself.

 

“You went for me. To protect me? Because of what Malcolm made me do.” She says it quietly.

 

“To protect you from what Malcolm did to Sara and to you.”

 

“And Felicity is mad at you for going?”

 

“No,” Oliver says softly, “that’s not it.”

 

He wishes it was that simple. Once it had been. A few months ago if he’d simply made a different choice maybe there wouldn’t be this gaping hole between him and Felicity, but now it is there. Gone are the glances to check in and the brush of a hand across a shoulder. Gone is her reassurance and her teasing. Oliver misses her. He misses her the way night and day always chase the other. The world doesn’t work if they don’t.

 

Sara had been like him, and that had made Oliver feel less alone. But Felicity makes him feel real. It wasn’t just her (former) faith in him; from the moment he met her Felicity caused Oliver to _want_. At first he wanted to regain some semblance of humanity. He wanted to be more than a revenge seeking vigilante. Then he wanted partners, and late he wanted a second chance with his family. The want grew:  friends, a love, and laughter. At some point Oliver’s want grew stronger than his rage. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to live.

 

His want wasn’t because of Felicity Smoak, but it started when he walked into her office and she was there every step along the way. Loving her is his most selfish want of all.

 

Now all he wants is to be able to be honest with her. He yearns for the right words to make her understand how sorry he is. He wants to tell her how scared he is and how he hates working with Malcolm but he knows it’s the only way. His survival instincts are too well honed and he knows in his gut that it has to happen this way if he’s going to keep Thea safe. How Oliver wishes he could find the words to explain this to Felicity. And most off he misses the normal between them:  their conversations over food, her rambling, and the ways they always find each other in a room. He misses the opportunity to show her how much he loves her.

 

And more than anything he misses Felicity herself.

 

He hasn’t seen her smile in far too long, and Oliver feels that weight. His death and his choices have cost her and Oliver doesn’t know how to stop hurting her except to stand back. He wants her to ramble and smile and tease and laugh. It doesn’t have to be with him. He wants her to blind the world with her brilliance and to go home at the end of the day knowing she’s helped save her city. He needs her to be happy again.

 

It’s a dangerous thing to want, Oliver realizes. Want is a heavy feeling and it demands you change or be haunted by what you can’t have.

 

“Oliver,” Thea says. “I know I don’t know everything that’s happened between you and Felicity, but as your sister I know you. And now that I know about the Arrow I might know you better than anyone else. I’ve spent my life chasing after you.”

 

She reaches across the pulls Oliver’s nearest hand off the yoke and laces her fingers through his.

 

“You’re not alone.”

 

Oliver squeezes her hand and offers a small smile. It appeases Thea and her eyes drift across the clouds they cut through as they head home. Oliver knows what she means. This weight he’s carrying - he doesn’t have to do this on his own. If that were true then maybe he could be the Arrow and Oliver Queen.

 

But knowing and believing something are two very different actions and Slade’s words sink down into his gut.

 

_How many more people can Oliver Queen lose and still be Oliver Queen?_

 

That is the heaviest weight of all; will someday Oliver Queen cease and only the Arrow remain?

 

It’s the one question he can’t answer.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray finds out Oliver is the Arrow.

“Oliver Queen is the Arrow.” 

Ray doesn’t look at her. Felicity is just through the doorway, and he leans against the workstation they set up off her office for work on the A.T.O.M. suit. She can see the way his body sags as her footsteps still. Neither say anything. Felicity swallows and stands very still. 

She knew was going to happen; when this whatever-it-is with Ray began Felicity lied to herself. She believed maybe he’d never have to find out. It was foolish lie built on the murky fact that Felicity knew - deep down - that this whatever-it-is will never go the distance. If she truly thought there was a permanent future with her and Ray she’d know telling him was inevitable. She would have wanted to be honest. But Felicity didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to think of the future in definite absolutes because she wanted to stay in this place longer. This place was a world where she had romance and companionship with Ray, and friendship and partnership with Oliver. It was a half-measure, but after the past few months Felicity is so tired of being sad that she is willing to settle for half-measures. 

But now he is looking at her with a clenched jaw and sharply focused eyes. Ray is the opposite of Oliver. On the surface Oliver Queen is remote and sometimes scary, but beneath that is a heart that feels so much it takes Felicity’s breath away when she witnesses it.  Whereas all of Ray’s warmth is on the outside; it’s easy to see that and miss the core of steel he is. It isn’t a cruel or heartless strength, quite the opposite in fact. Ray Palmer is a good guy, and that is why Felicity knows this is her fault. Ray is a good guy, but he is not a pushover. She can see the harsher and deeper emotions he so rarely lets anyone see. That is how he looks at her now and she knows this is her fault. 

“Yes. Oliver is the Arrow.” 

She sets her purse down on her desk and leans against it. Her hands grip the edges and she crosses her legs at the ankle. They face one another and Felicity can feel the distance between them like a heavy weight slung across her shoulders.

Ray laughs and shakes his head. “That’s it?” 

“What do you want me to say?” 

“How long have you known?” 

“A couple years.” 

“So all those personal emergencies you have…those are him?” 

“Except for the one time a pipe burst in my condo yes. If I have to take a call or miss a day of work it’s because of our work.” 

“ _Our_ work. You make it sound like you guys are a team or something.” 

Felicity straightens, “We are. Me. Him. John Diggle. There are others. Oliver may be the Arrow, but the good we do - that’s all of us.” 

Ray looks at her as if she were speaking gibberish. “Good? Starling has suffered two terrorist attacks since he showed up, and just a few months ago the Glades was annexed to an organized crime ring. How can you call any of that good?” 

There was so many ways she wants to answer that - to defend their record and explain that it could have been so much worse if Oliver hadn’t been there. She wants Ray to sit down so she can explain, but before she can he turns his back on her and slams a fist onto the worktable. The metal hums and Felicity stays still. 

“He killed Anna.” 

“That’s not fair.” 

“I know what I overheard at John Diggle’s wedding. Oliver said it was his fault those freak super soldiers came to Starling. That it was revenge for something he’d done. I heard him say it to you.” 

“You don’t know the whole story,” Felicity starts. “If you just let me explain…”

She makes it three steps but Ray stops her with a look. She can see the tears reflect in his eyes and her heart squeezes. She knows how much he loved Anna. She thinks of Cooper and remembers the pain of losing someone you wanted to love forever. 

“I want you to stop.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I want you to stop whatever you do for him. If you help him hack databases or build tech. I want you to stop.” 

Felicity took a deep breath. She remembers the day she lashed out at Ray and demanded he stop his work on the A.T.O.M. suit. It wouldn’t bring back the dead, she’d yelled. It won’t make the pain stop. That day Ray had been kind enough to see that she wasn’t really talking about Anna. He had been able to see past her pain, and Felicity is determined to do the same now. 

“I know you’re hearing the reports of the Arrow killing people, but that isn’t Oliver. There’s this…this…man who is determined to make the city turn on Oliver so he’ll do what this man wants. If you will just let me explain.” 

“There isn’t an explanation in the world that will convince me that Oliver Queen isn’t directly responsible for Anna’s death. He may not have done it with his own hand, but it’s his fault. He’s not protecting this city; he’s destroying it. Lives. Anna’s life. My life.” Ray took a deep breath and his voice evened. “I couldn’t protect Anna, but I can protect you. I don’t want you to have anything to do with Oliver Queen. He will be the end of you.” 

A switch flipped in Felicity. Her spine went straight and her eyes narrowed on Ray’s expression. He met her stare with one of his own.

“No.” 

“No?” 

“No.” 

Ray switches tactics, “Is he the reason why you took the job? To have access to my technology? My ideas? To steal from my company to help him?” 

The question sends a chill running down Felicity’s arms. She is so angry she’s shaking, but she holds her head even and high. 

“Are you demanding I stop as my boss or my boyfriend?” 

“Does it matter?” 

“It does to me,” she snaps. “Because you came to _me_ for help. Both times. You asked  _me_  to work for you, and you begged  _me_  to help you with your mission. And I did. And you know what? I can run circles around you, Ray. I’m smarter than you. I’m better at my job than you. You came to  _me_  so if as my boss you’re angry you better say so now because I don’t do overbearing boyfriends. Period. If it’s my professionalism you’re questioning then we can talk it out. I can answer every question you want to know, but you’re going to find what you already know:  I’m here because I care about the work this company does and I care about you. But you better decide right now because that’ll determine if I walk out that door or not.” 

She inhales at the end, and she realizes how deeply she is trembling. 

“I’m trying to understand how you could work with him.” 

“And I’m willing to tell you anything you want to know.” 

“Fine. Start with why didn’t you tell me?” 

_Because I hoped we’d never get that far._ The thought slithers through her mind, unexpected and unwelcome. It’s harsh, but true. Felicity knows that she doesn’t owe Ray that confession so she falls back on her other reason. 

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.” 

“What did you think was going to happen between us? That I’d never question why you were taking another man’s calls in the middle of the night? That I just wouldn’t notice? What did you think we were building? I thought we were on the same page - that this was going somewhere real.” 

She knows the look on her face gives her away.

Ray nods and puts his hands into his pockets. “Are you in love with him? Because then I can begin to fathom why you didn’t tell me. I was just some proxy of him because he doesn’t love you back.” 

“You’re not being fair to me.” 

“That’s why you do it, though right? Help him and let yourself call it justice. Excuse how many lives you’ve helped ruin. You do it because you love him.”  

Felicity doesn’t say anything. All the months she’d spent with Ray…their friendship, their work, and the beginnings of whatever-it-is…it’s unspooling at her feet and Felicity is tired. She’s tired of believing in men who put themselves before her. 

“Say it. You owe me that much. The truth for once. Do you love Oliver Queen?” 

“Is that the most important thing to you?” 

“Yes.” 

“You find out Oliver is the Arrow and that I help him and that I’ve given the past two years of my life to the work we do and the most important thing to you is if I love him?” 

“Do you love Oliver Queen?” 

Felicity shakes her head and bites down on her lip to keep from laughing. She picks her purse and slides it onto her shoulder. She turns away from Ray without a backward look, and walks toward the door. 

“Your silence tells me everything I need to know.” 

Felicity stills in the doorway, “No Ray, it doesn’t. I choose me and I make choices for myself. Not for you. Not for Oliver. And if you can’t see that, value it, then there’s nothing left to say.” 

 

 


End file.
